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EULOGY 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



Sixteenth President of tiis United States, 



YRONOUNCED BY 



RUFUS I>. TAPLEY, ESQ., 



APEIL 19, 1865, AT SACO, MAINE, 



INCLUDING THE 



LEPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE TOWN OF SACO 
CONSEQUENT UPON HIS DEATH. 



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BIDDEFORD : 

PRINTED AT THE UNION AND JOURNAL OFFICE. 

1865. 



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10 1942 






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R E T j O R T 



PROCEEDINGS. 






Committee Rooms, ?own Hall, ) 
Saco, April :20th, 1865. { 
RcFcre P. 1'ai-i.ky, Esq., 
Dear Sir : 

At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements, it was 
TOtod that we tender you our thanks for the Eology pronounced by you up- 
on the late Presidentof the United .States, and, in accordance with another 
ad a general desire of tho citizen* o : • have the same pub- 

lished in pamphlet form for preservation and reference hereafter by the 
community, we request, ii convenient and agreeable to yourself , a copy of 
the - ime lor publication. 

Very Respect fully, 

Voui Servants, 

JAMES M. DBBRING, 
Chaikman Oi TBI Cov. 01 Abbakokmknm. 



Saco, April 20, 1865. 

<r| S r I i Mi N 

When on Monday, the 17th inst., :, "i me to pronounce a 

eulogy ol the late President of the United States, upon the 17th inst., the 
shortness oi time and the great depression of feeling consequent upon the 
awful intelligence ol his death, then just received, forcibly impressed me 
with the t;rt:a emoarrassment under whii Id undertake the task. 

1 then told you, I did not feel at liberty to decline the ro- 
ll the sentiments by me <■*] • ision tireineym- 
. a itli the feelings ol the <• mmonity.as 1 trust they arc 1 shall cheer- 
folly furnish you with h >pyol the earn forpubl ition, trusting the cir- 

o under which thej • red some apology 

for theii imperfeel I ition. 

\ ours, with rosi • I . 

RUFUS P. lAl'LKY. 

e dm mitti I Ira 






Friday, the 14th day of April, 1865, at thirty minutes past 
10 o'clock P. M., Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth Presi- 
dent of the United States, was assassinated and shot by J. 
Wilkes Booth, at Ford's Theatre, in the city of Washington. 
He survived the act until the next day, April 15th, and died 
at 7 o'clock 22 minutes A. M. An attempt was made to as- 
sassinate William H. Seward, Secretary of State, at the same 
moment of time, but failed. Mr. Seward was dangerously 
wounded by the assassin, and is now recovering. 

Upon the receipt of this awful intelligence, which was 
communicated by telegraph immediately upon his decease, 
the citizens of Saco assembled at the Town Hall and resolved 
to close their places of business, and hold a public meeting 
at 3 o'clock P. M. of the same day, and immediately report- 
ed an organization by the choice of officers, as follows: 

PRESIDENT. 

r> a. isr i if, i^ s m ith, j i- . 



VICE PRESIDENTS, 



H, TEMPLE, 
JACOB MARSTON, 
ABEL I1ERSEY, 
DAVID FERNALD, 
JOSEPH STEVENS, 
JOSHUA MOODY, 



NATHANIEL DEERING. 
MOSES EMERY, 
GEORGE SCAMMAN, 
JAMES M. DEERING, 
PHILIP EASTMAN, 
MOSES LOWELL, 



JOSEPH HOBSOV 



I. H. FOSS, 



SECRETARIES, 
CHAS. 8. PATTEN, 



STEPHEN F. SHAW. 



At :J o'clock P. M. the ball, draped with the insignia of 
mourning, was crowded to its utmost capacity with a great 
mourning assembly. The meeting was called to order by 
Hutu- P. Tapley, Esq., who reported the list of officers. 
The Chairman of the meeting announced the exercises, 
which took place as follows : 

Prayer, by Rev. J. T. G. Nichols. 

Singing, by Select Choir. 

Reading of Scriptures, by Rev. S. J. Evans. 
Reading of Resolutions, and remarks, 

by R. P. Tapley, Esq. 
Remarks, by Rev. J. Windsor, A. F. Chisholm, Esq., 
Rev. O. T. Moulton, Rev. Benj. Wheeler, Rev. E. 
Mi rtin, of Saco, and Rev. John Stevens of Bid- 
deford. 
Singing, by the Choir. 

Benediction, by Rev. J. H. Windsor. 

Th> Resolutions presented by Mr. Tapley, Chairman of 
the Committee <>n Res Ives, were as follows: 

RESOLUTIONS. 

1st. Resolved, That in the sudden and melancholy death of the Chief 
;iatruto 'it' this nati a, the country has lost a Patriot, and Freedom and 
Liberty an > nswen • r. 

2d. Resolved, That we renew our thanks to Almighty God that while 
tlh: nation mourns as lore, behind its cloude of tears we distinctly 

r gmize tin' glistening e\ • ■( faith in the success of our cause, and the 
rem wed determination "i the people to preserve and maintain tins glorious 
inheritance, 

Phal tuition mourns it in not disheartened, hut 

will trust in tin- same All Wi»e ruler ol events to aid u< in the complete 
UHiation "i the ^1 <r . n results opening to our view. 

Mr. Tuple} ver I lingly and hopefully addressed the 
meeting u ter pi . the resolutions above, as followH : 



A patriot, a Christian, and almost a Washington, is dead. 
The good, wise, kind-hearted President has been cruelly 
murdered. The ruthless murderers have slain their best 
friend. A nation is sad — a great nation weeps, mourns 
and laments. Its great heart is heaved with sighs ; but be- 
hind the torrent of tears there rests a calm, determined con- 
fidence and will that cannot be shaken from its purposes by 
bloody massacres and savage assassinations. The sorrow, 
the anguish, and the pain of this hour rouses the patriotic 
heart, and nerves the patriotic arm to unrecorded deeds and 
actions, and as sure as God reigns so sure are the institu- 
tions of Freedom and Liberty to prevail. It needs but the 
tap of the drum to call into line millions of men, defenders 
of the right and avengers of the wrong. 

President Lincoln is dead. Our leader is slain — yes, mur- 
dered ; but still the contest for right goes on. We shall 
miss him at every point in the conflict ; we shall miss his 
sagacious counsels, his wise, kind, and firm direction ; his 
ever ready remedies for emergencies, and his unswerving 
integrity. But God, who gave us this leader, and brought 
him to the very portals of a perfect Temple of Liberty, will 
surely provide another to lead us in. The bright path of 
the past will illumine the future, and guide a new defender 
to the execution of our hearts' desire. 

Sad as we are to-day, there is no cause for despondency. 
Overwhelming as is our cloud of sorrow, the sun of eternal 
justice sits behind, and will surely break through in glory 
and gladness to the patriot, and in shame and sorroAv to the 
traitor. 

A holy and just God yet reigns, and through His all- 
wise counsels, and the devotion of the brave defenders of 
our country in the army and navy, supported by a loyal 
people at home, the end is nigh ; and this great calamity 
will ever hereafter be regarded as the incontrovertible evi- 



8 



dence of the malign spirit of the enemies of a free govern- 
ment. 

Friends and fellow-citizens: We are just entering upon 
that Held of the contest which requires the experience and 
! i of the greatest and best of men. 

V this time, perhaps more than any other, did we seem 
* • need the assistance of those men who have been stricken 
down; grave questions of internal policy and right must 
arise, and they arise upon the heel of heated and sanguinary 
conflicts : the contending parties are one people, and one 
nation: while the sword brings subjection now, time only 
will bring unity, under a just execution of equal and just 
laws. To guide and pilot the conflicting opinions of men 
upon the future course and policy of this mighty nation at 
any time, requires great wisdom, experience, and judgment: 
now it requires the greatest foresight, patriotism, and wis- 
dom to be found in the country, aided by a truly loyal and 
brave people. Every citizen should remember that as the 
great waves of the ocean are but drops moving together, so 
tin greal sea of public opinion is but the concerted moving 
of the private views of the individual: we arc the contribu- 
tor--, and bo far each is responsible. As wo love our 
country: as we desire its speedy restoration to unity of 
feeling ; ae we hope for its glorious future, so let us care- 
fully weigh and prudently express our individual thoughts 
and feelings. 

Grievous as is this great affliction of ours, let none des- 
pond. Our reliance is not is man. No losses, no misfor- 
tunes, and ii" embarrassments can crush out the sentiment of 
liberty dow pervading the great masses of the people. The 
conflic! ie Bure to go on until the stars and stripes shall be 
the flag of the brave and the /'/>< . and Bhall truly be the Ban- 
ner of Liberty. 



On Monday fche 17tb, it was announced by the acting Sec- 
retary of State, that the funeral services of the late Presi- 
dent of the United States, would take place at 12 o'clock 
M. on Wednesday. April 19th, A. D. 18(>5, at Washington, 
D. C. and recommended a proper observance of the occa- 
sion throughout the country. 

The citizens of the town immediately assembled, and 
chose a committee of arrangements to make preparations 
for a suitable observance of the occasion. 

The Committee consisted of 



James M. Peering, Chairman. 
Rufus P. Tapley, Joseph Hobson, 

Joseph Hardy, 
F. L. Harmon, 
0. B. Chadbourne, 
Ohadtah Durgin, 
F. 0. Boothby, 
Cornelius Sweetser. 



N. T. Boothby, 
Tracy Hewes, 
John Gains, 
S. P. Shaw, 
Jason W. Beatty, 
George Parcher. 

This Committee subsequently reported the following Or- 
der of ExercFs'es, and officers of the day : 



OSDEfc 0KT EXSECXSES. 



Government, State, and Municipal Officers of the Town, 
and Citizens generally, will meet at Town Hall, at precisely 
half past twelve o'clock, when the exercises at the Hall will 
commence. 

1. Voluntary by the Choir. 

2. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Windsor. 

3. Reading of Scripture by Rev. Mr. Nichols. 

■!. Singing by the Choir; Hymn by Rev. Mr. Wheeler. 

5. A procession will then be formed and proceed to Fac- 
tory Island, where R. P. Tapley, Esq., will pro- 
nounce a Eulogy. 

G. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Moulton. 



10 



7. Doxology. Selections by Bev. Mr. Evans ; the au- 
dience to join in singing. 
B. Benediction by Rev. Mr. Martin. 



ornc£B.s or the dax. 

JOSEPH HOB90N, Pmbidsht. 
VICE PRESIDENTS. 

Hannaniafa Temple, George Scamman, 



Jacob Marston, 
Abraham Cutter, 
David Fernald, 
Abel 1 1 > • i -« y , 
James Littlefield, 
Eld. John Boothby, 
Nathaniel Fernald, 
Theodore Tripp, 
Oliver Freeman, 
Nathaniel Deering. 



Daniel Smith, Jr. 
James Beatty, 
Samuel V. Coring, 
Samuel Storer, 
William Cutts, 
Elias Parcher, 
Nathan Hopkinson, 
Christopher Shackford, 
Charles C. Sawyer, 
Joseph Stevens. 



1 



BKCBET ABIES. 

I!. L Bowers, R. ( -«- Dennett, 

Charles M. Littlefield. 

CHIEF HABSHAL, 

Qwen B. Chadbourne. 

Stephen F. Shaw and Ira II. Fobs were appointed Aids by 
l.\ the Chief Marshal, with a sufficient number oi Assistants. 

The i dci ssion was directed by the Marshal to move at 
one o'clock in the following order : 

< ivalcade, under the direction of Col. B. J. March. 

Paul's Comet Band. 

Aid. Cbiep Mabsbal. Aid. 



11 



Municipal Officers of the Town ; Government and State 

Officers ; Officers of the Day ; Clergymen, 

and other Citizens of the Town. 

Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 

Engine Companies. 

Schools, under the charge of their respective Teachers. 

Citizens generally. 



EOTTE 0£ F&OC£8SX029r. 



Prom Town Hall up School to High street ; up High to 
Beach street ; up Beach to Main street ; down Main 
street to the stand on Factory Island, where the 
Eulogy will be pronounced and the other exer- 
cises continued as in the order announced. 

The procession was very large and preceded by a caval- 
cade of one hundred horses, and moved in the order and 
over the route indicated to the stand, where a vast concourse 
of people were assembled. 

The number of persons present exceeded 5,000. The de- 
livery of the Eulogy occupied forty-five minutes, during 
which time hardly a foot in the vast throng was moved. 

The Eulogy was pronounced from a stand erected near the 
Eastern Express Office, which was appropriately draped in 
mourning, and the Flag of the country extending over the 
entire back ground, forming at once a grand and solemn 
picture. 

Mr. Tapley's voice was clear, the delivery solemn and 
impressive ; a strong wind was blowing at the time, yet the 
audience heard him distinctly in all parts of the vast as- 
sembly. 



12 



At the solicitation of many citizens, the manuscript has 
been obtained, and is published with this report. 

All the places of business were closed, and draped in 
mourni ig, \\ i t li most of the dwelling-houses in the village. 

The services were very impressive and proceeded unin- 
terruptedly, as indicated in the arrangements. 

The I ■ | ili of April. 1865, will be- remembered long in "ho 
United States of America. 



( 



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E U L G Y 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



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EULOGY. 



"Abraham *§inz#\K, 

SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 8TATES: 

I5».«rn .!*&-!'.:m, 1609 ; DlKD APRIL 1'tii, I6C6." 



Thus is marked the frail enclosure of all that is mortal of 
a great and good num. Kings and Emperors, Princes and 
Potentates, Heroes and Presidents have gone before, and 
kingdoms, empires and nations have wept, hut not as our 
nation weeps to-day. Mis great goodness and untimely end 
have struck with awful, terrible and unmeasurabie sadness 
the deepest wells of emotion and the very foundations of 
human sympathy. 

When, after a long life of usefulness, a Patriot, a Hero or 
a President shakes off his earthly habiliments and is gath. 
ored, full of years and honors, as the rip mud sheaf is gath- 
ered, to the home of the just and good, we drop the silent, 
tear of affection and re3pect, and regarding the end as an 
obedience to the stern law that from dust thou art and unto 
dust thou shalt return, it leaves no sadness oi' heart and in- 
exorable grief. But when one in whom Ave have confided 
in hours of great trouble, one on whom we have been accus- 
tomed to look as the peculiar agent under God to deliver us 
from our dangers and save us from a national dismember- 
ment, one whose kindness exceeded all others, is struck down 
in the midst of his usefulness, in cold-blooded murder by 
the hands of those he tenderly cared for, the deep fountains 
of the heart are so moved that we cannot be comforted, and 



it; 

each returning day brings with it the deep-drawn, heavy 
Bigh oi' unutterable sorrow. Words are p iwerless to speak 
our l : the tongue is too feeble to express our sor- 

row, and time with us too short to efface the remembrance 
of this hour. When, Mr. President, you and I shall have 
paid the last debt of nature, and hid adien to earthly ambi- 
tions and transitory scenes, these little children will remem- 
ber the hour, and Badly rehearse to their children the cruel 
end of the loved, kind, wise and good Lincoln, and with 
them, as with us, the high, enviable position of President of 
a great people and nation, will sink into utter insignificance 
when compared with the great goodness of his heart, his 
love of justice covered all over with mercy, and his unap- 
proachable int< grity. 

Since God in his all-wise <'<n<\ inscrutable providence has 
suffered the enemies of this country to take from us in this 
cruel maimer our beloved President, let our prayer be more 
earnest, more fervent and continual, that God will save the 
United States of America and while we yield to the im- 
pulses of nature, and pour out our tears ,){* sorrow like rain, 
let u< also be thankful that he was snared to us so lomr.and 
was the successful pilot of the Hup of State over so man}' 
perilous shoal*. 

Abraham Lincoln was horn on the 1 2th day of February, 
1800, in Harden county, Kentucky. Ili> father's name was 
Thomas Lincoln and his grandfather's name was Abraham. 
They were burn in Virginia, but moved into Kentucky in 
L780. Here Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, 
lived until 1816, when he removed to Spencer County, Indi- 
ana, Abraham being then about seven years of age. Their 
ihold goods and his tools wero curried in u flat-boat 
made father, assisted bj himself, young as be then 

was. Their jourw y occupied some seven days through an 
"an:!' i ttry ; their restinj at night b< ing a 



17 

blanket spread upon the ground. Immediately after arriv- 
ing at the place selected for their residence, they built a log 
cabin Having only one room. The loft was young Abra- 
ham's room, and was approached by a ladder. During the 
year that followed, Abraham gave such attention as he could 
to reading and spelling. His mother could read, but his 
father could not. During the next year his mother died, 
which was a sad event for the young President. He had 
been a dutiful son and she a devoted mother, and it is said 
that to her may be traced many of those remarkable traits 
and characteristics for which he was distinguished in after 
life. During this year he learned to write, so that at the 
end of the year he was able to write a letter. He was now 
about ten years of age. During the next year a small school 
was opened in his neighborhood, and he attended upon this 
in all about six months, and this comprised all his public in- 
structions at schools. He, however, embraced every op- 
portunity to add to his limited education. Until he was 
nineteen years of age he was constantly engaged in laboring 
in the woods. At this time in life he made a trip to New 
Orleans in a flat boat, at a pay of $10 per month. In 1830. 
being thon twenty-one y cm r.< of age, he moved with his fa- 
tner to Macon County in the State of Illinois. Here they 
erected another log cabin and enclosed a lot of land with 
rails split, out by himself. 

The following spring he left home to seek his fortune 
among strangers, and went westward into Menard Count v, 
and after working on a farm about a year he took another 
trip to New Orleans in the employ of a trader, who was so 
well pleased with his services that he employed him to take 
charge of his mill and store, and in this position it was he 
acquired the title of "Honest Abe." 

In the year following he served some months in the Black 
Hawk war as a captain of infantry. In 18o4 something more 



2^SZMnU£Sat&BBKBSXUBf££J&Z^J 



1> 



than a y.-ar after his return from the campaign, he was elect- 
ed a member of tin- Legislature ami was again re-elected in 
L836, l v ;8 and 18-10. While attending the proceedings of 
the first Bession of the Legislature, he determined to be- 
come a lawyer, and being placed in the possession of the 
accessary books, through the kindness of the Hon. John T. 
Stuart, applied himseli to study and in L836, was admitted 
to practice. In April 1^.57. he removed to Springfield and 
became a partner ol Mr. Stuart. In that pursuit he won a 
position and reputation at the Illinois bar. second to none. 
His mind was eminently Legal. As an advocate he was clear, 
COgenl and logical. 

In 1846 he was elected to Congress, and during his term 
of office he exhibited those remarkable traits of character, 
and debating powers which distinguished him in later years. 

After the expiration of his term of office he devoted him- 
self almost exclusively to the practice of Jaw until 1854, 
when he again entered the political arena ; and from that 
time until his election as President he was frequently before 
the public in the discussion of public matter.-, the most noted 
ol' which i> the joint debates with Senator Douglas in L858. 

Thus much of his history it may be proper here to men- 
tion that we may ha\e some view of the early incidents in 
his history, and learn in what school he was taught those 
lesson- of wisdom and virtue without which no man can be 
-real. 

Abraham Lincoln was a self-made man. as the term is 
sometimes used, which means and in reality is, he was a man 
tcrling qualities ol heart and unusual intellectual pow- 
ers. Beared in the wilderness, the companion of poverty, 
and lai r< moved from the educational privileges enjoyed b\ 
real mass ol his constituency lie rose to the highest 
civil and political position given to man to occupy in this 
w orld. 



, — ,...., ,i 



19 

He became the President of a great Republic, in the hour 
of its greatest peril. 

A Republican government had been before regarded as a 
an experiment. He was called to direct those mighty and 
wonderful events which should proclaim to all the world pre- 
sent and future that it was a fact. The fathers had died 
hoping for its perpetuity, but fearing that in its comprom- 
ised construction the seeds of its own dissolution were sown. 
Washington warned his children of the danger, and Jeffer- 
son trembled in view of the justice of God. 

An unexampled prosperity for more than three quarters 
of a century had raised us from a few feeble colonies to a 
powerful nation of thirty millions of people ; with inexhaus- 
table resources at home, and a ready respect abroad, our 
flag floated upon every sea and ocean, acknowledging none 
as its superior; yielding justice to all, we were enabled to 
exact it in return. While thus our relations abroad were 
peaceful and harmonious, at home the two antagonisms of 
our construction were slowly but inevitably approaching the 
comflict for mastery. Webster, Clay, and the great men of 
the day, endeavored to avert it, by new compromises and 
new guarantees to the weaker element; these served only to 
postpone for a brief hour, as it were, the crisis ; we could 
not endure ''half slave, and half free." The voice of the 
people expressed four years before the election of Mr. Lin- 
coln, plainly indicated the predominate spirit of the country, 
and the South learned that slaver} r must die or live alone. 
It was not the hand-maid of Liberty. 

With the choice between liberty with union, and slavery 
with disunion, they chose the latter, and during the four years 
preceding the election of Mr. Lincoln, the most assiduous, 
stealthy and perfidious efforts were made to divide the coun- 
try and prepare the foundations of a new government in the 
United States, based upon Am°,riecLii slavery: (for all the civ- 

i i i i ii nil ii ii ii i 111 in i 111 ii i m i m i m i i — mi Mi nn mm 



20 



ilized nations of the earth had forbade the enslavement and 
traffic in the natives of Africa.) The army and navy had been 
gathered to their nses, and the federal government was 
stripped ot all its power except its inherent virtues. 

With treason stalking forth all over the land, and made 
magnificent by its wondrous proportion and boldness, with 
Statu after State renouncing their allegiance to the Consti- 
tution and the laws of their country, without army, navy or 
treasury Mr. Lincoln succeeded a corrupt, traitorous admin- 
istration, and an imbecile, it" not worse, President. 

Truly such a position needed more than a Washington, 
and when he left his quiet home to assume the arduous du- 
ties to which he had been elected, well does he say : -1 feel 
that I cannot succeed without the same Divine ;iid which 
sustained Washington, and in the same Almighty Bei I 
place my reliance foT support." 

To meet the great emergencies of such an hour, not only 
great administrative abilities were required, but greal sagac- 
ity in the selection of moans and the time and the manner 
of execution. The civil and the military must be blended 
togother, an army and a navy created, and a treasury 'ill d. 

Ilow well he fulfilled the great trusts committed to him, 
and performed the Herculean task imposed upon him, the his- 
torj of the past lour years will over attest, and the great 
unanimity of bis re-election will evidence the appreciation ol 
an intelligent people of his fitness for this periloi * p< riod 
in our country's history. 

[Je needs do other eulogy. No brighter paged can be 
written for him than the record ol his deed-, and as untime- 
ly as his death a halo of glor) surrounds him excelling in 
..:: and goodness an) since the day of the father ol' 
li! country. I'»\ the side of Washington will his name go 
down to tin' I ' i 'ions of men. and unborn millions 



>. . *....- 



. 1, .».. . . 



SBEBi 

21 

of every nationality shall read his name and deeds but to 
bless him. 

He was a man of great intellectual power, and in this par- 
ticular history and the future alone will do him justice. He 
lived at a time when the events of centuries were crowded 
into days. The great, momentous and novel occurrences of 
the time absorb, in their comet-like coursa, every thing of a 
less attractive nature. A d iv mikes a horn and an hour 
unmakes him. The present cannot truly measure them. 
The impartial historian, writing their lives after the storm 
shall have pissed, will chronologically present their acts and 
deeds, and we shall read and wonder that passion, zeal and 
the all-absorbing events of the da}* blinded us to their great 
and good qualities of heart and mind. 

The President was placed at the head of the government 
in a most remarkable period of its history. The whole civ- 
ilized world looked on with wonder and awe, as well as in- 
terest. The performance of his duties required, and it re- 
ceived, an intellectual power truly wonderful. 

It was not manifested in great efforts and results in one 
given direction and upon one given subject, but he did many 
things well, rather titan a few, in an extraordinary manner. 

Ifis state papers were very numerous. lie wrote more 
than any other President, and he wrote them all well. The 
critic, even, will pronounce them all good. They embraced 
a vast variety of subjects, and required to be fitted to the 
times and circumstances. Their wonderful qualities were 
not in form and dress, but in their remarkable adaptation in 
tone, tune and substance to the exigencies of the occasion ; 
and it is one of the grandest evidences of his remarkable 
mind, that were we to tread anew the path of the past, with 
the light of all its experience, the wisest men of to-day could 
not change for the better those acts of his done at the hour 
of their call. 



™sT~n?r ; 



22 



While hi* sp • ■ ;li •> and addresses are not clothed with the 

!i-- .in 1 dictioD of Everett's writings,and do not 

Iih -ess upon them of the profound expression of 

ii til Ianguag3 of a Webster, the conclusive, irresist- 

iY • priof of the masterly mind which conceived and exe- 

cul ! them, lies in the facl that they were universally the 

things rightly said in the righl time. To thus place 

;,!!;,- !i in the present under such extraordinary circumstan- 

equired the greatest wisdom, sagacity, prudence and 

firmness. 

Su :h results flow nut from the ordinary mind. To scan 
the mighty field of events passing and opening to the view, 
ami quickly prescribe and administer the antidote, without 
i 1 :- light of precedent, calls into exercise those powers of 
mind and qualities of hearl possessed only by the wonderful 
in in rarely found i i ages of existence. 

Scan the world, sele -t thegreatesl -talesmen and scholars 

of the old ami new world, and tell mi-, with the light even of 

y t where is the man who could have better executed 

the trusts committed to him than he whose untimely death 

we mourn. 

The record of his acts and the results of his deeds will 
constitute an everlasting monumenl of his greatness. 

President Lincoln was ever attached to the true principles 
of a Tree government. His earliesl public acts and speeches 
■.i.. greal promise, asa defender of tree institutions. At 
no time or place was he ever found the defender or apolo- 
^•i>t of oppression or tyranny in any form. His speeches 
in the memorable campaign of 1858 show how well he 
rstood those principles, and how ably he could defend 
Every act and ever} purpose of his life was 
to j 'eld to the greal end of the " permanency of a free 
eminent." II loved his country sincerely, and while nol 
indifferenl thly honors and political preferment, he 



TT * nr ,s'i ir. jii.m. 'W i iT 



never sought tliem at the sacrifice of principle. With a 
scrupulous regard for the constitutional rights of States and 
individuals, lie watched with jealous care any encroachments 
upon the libeities of the people. Believing that the framers 
of the Constitution had left the institution of slavery "in a 
course of ultimate extinction," he regarded the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise and the attending decision of the 
Supreme Court in the Drcd Scott case as acts designed to 
change that policy, and he gave nil the powers of his mind 
to exhibit the great injustice of the one and the fallacy of 
the other, with a success that has placed him high in the 
rank of logical debaters. A distinguished scholar and critic, 
speaking of him in one of those debates, says: 

Mr. Lincoln has a rich, silvery voice, enunciates with great 
distinctness, and has a free command of language : for about 
forty minutes he spoke with a power that we have seldom 
heard equalled. There was a grandeur in his thoughts, a 
comprehensiveness in his arguments and a binding force in 
his conclusions which were perfectly irresistible. The vast 
throng was silent as death ; every eye was fixed upon the 
speaker, and all gave him serious attention. He was the 
tall man eloquent ; his countenance glowed with animation, 
and his eye glistened with an intelligence that made it lus- 
trous. He was no longer awkward and ungainly: but bold, 
graceful and commanding. 

1 heard him speak but once, and that was in the delivery 
of his first inaugural address, and therefore prefer to give 
the opinion and description of a person who had heard him 
many times. 

He was proverbially an honest man; " the noblest work 
of God." He was so regarded by men of all parties. After 
four years of administration, with almost as many millions of 
money expended as ever thousands before, he is again be- 
fore the people for re-election, with no intimation or breath 
of suspicion made, or entertained against his integrity of 
purpose and act, by his most violent oprosers. Subjected 



to ill- closest scrutiny, and most violent partisan warfare, 
travelling difficult paths, and surrounded with almost insur- 
mountable difficulties, without the light of any precedent, 
by his unswerving integrity and unyielding attachment to 
the right, he laid off his armor as pure and unspotted as 
when he put it on. 

II.- was kind to a fault. No act <>l' his life from his earli- 
est infancy, to the close of his earthly existence, forms the 
exception. His magnanimous soul disdained a mean thing, 
and his kindness of heart forbade a knowing wrong. 

Mr. Douglas in his first reply, said of him. ''I take ;. 
pleasure in saying, that 1 have known personally and inti- 
mately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy gentle- 
man who has I n nominated formy place, and I will say, I 

regard him a- n kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman, a good 
citizen, and an honorable opponent, and whatever issue I 
may have with him, will be one of principles, and not involv- 
ing personalil : is." 

This peculiar trail of Ins character, i-. perhaps, more prom- 
inent than any other. His very nature repelled evervl 
harsh and ungenerous. II ■ could not helieve in a t the of 
the treason and rebellion existing in the country. II. • want- 
ed to regard every man honest, and sec in every man a friend ; 
and although lig - i to reach the ca] itol of his country by 
;i devious pat I . to avoid assassinate >n, in closing his in m j. u- 
ral he breathes forth the same kindly spirit, and says : 

I am loth to ;loso. We are raol em nies, but friends. We 

not be en mies. Though passi >n may have strained, 

il must not break our bonds ofaffecti >n. The mystic cords 

of memory, stretching from even I ittfe-field, and patriot 

i, to even living heart and hearth stone all over the 

I land, will yet swell the eh. him of the Union, when 

again touched, as they surely w ill be, b\ the better angels of 

. in' n.i! iir>\ 



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a— .. v. < in r TTBTP S3 



25 

He could not realize that there existed among the people 
of this country, that reckless disregard of the feelings of 
common humanity, that would starve the brave soldier of an 
opposing army while their prisoners of war, until the indu- 
bitable evidence of this great outrage upon the laws of na- 
tions, nature and humanity, had been exhibited to him ; and 
then, when the highest military officer of a traitorous army, 
with all his subordinates and soldiers, has been compelled to 
submit to the supreme force of law and order, administered 
by our brave soldiers, with every incentive to retaliate and 
punish, the same kindly, christian spirit, dictates the terms 
of a surrender, which will ever be marked in the annals of 
war, as of extraordinary magnanimity. 

Returning from the extraordinary exhibition of magnanimi- 
ty, to his home, he attends a place of public amusement, not 
to gratify his own pleasure, but that he might not be the 
instrument of disappointment to others, and there, while 
confiding in the same goodness of heart in others which 
characterized him, he was cruelly murdered. Truth is, in- 
deed, stranger than fiction. 

It is this foul crime, this ingratitude for kindness shown, 
that raises in the heart of man something beyond sorrow, 
and will require the exercise of those kindly feelings which 
so distinguished him, to repress. 

The*se qualities of his heart, prompted him to the consum- 
mation of the crowning act of his life — the emancipation of 
an enslaved people. 

Four millions of people in bondage, crying out to be de- 
livered from their oppressors, grated harshly upon his ears, 
and his heart, quickened by the generous impulses of his 
nature, sought in every legitimate way their amelioration. 
By careful and intuitive steps, the great public mind was 
educated, not only to the justice, but the necessity, of the 
emancipation of that oppressed people, and if no other act 



26 

or deed marked his name, this alone, would crown it in the 
3 di' history with more endearing tame, than bas ever 
vrt been a< corded to hero or pbilanthropisi in any 

It v. a to him to strike the fetters from millions of 

his enslaved country men. It was given fco him to wipe out 

blot od our nation's otherwise glorious record. 

He, with a patriot's hand, and a christian's heart, with he- 
roic courage, seized the pen and wrote, 'Be free, ye millions 
of bondmen." While the people stood fearing and doubt- 
ing, he did it. Then the storm came from the enemies oi 
; iv : the winds beat; and the rain of invective denuncia- 
tion fell in torrents, but the house did uot tall, for it was 
buill upon the eternal rock of justice. Let everlasting thanks 
be given to Almighty God that he made one so worthy. His 
instrument to break the rod of the oppressor; that lie gave 
him courage when others (cared: that He strengthened hiin 
when others tainted. 

From the hour of that proclamation, American Slavery 
lead, and the United States a tree go^ ernment, the dec- 
imation of independence an accomplished fact, and the con- 
st it nt i 1 1 1 1 a charter of Liberty . 

In rude and simple phrase, millions of thanksgivings and 
praises to his name and memory have ascended from that 
oppressed people, and will continue to rise so long as histo- 
ry shall record then- oppression and the name of their deliv 
erer. In the rude huts, in the rice swamps, and on the held 
of the ver) interior of the oppressors' country, as if bj some 
lighl from heaven, or by some angel communication, I 
>f toil, have discovered their deliverer, and abovi 
oami i and cherish his. I Ee was made to open 

to them the brighl and glorious day >>l' freedom: to open the 
window- oi the -oul. and lei in the lighl of intelligence to 
hundreds oi thousands: we can almost hear the ten 
thousand lisping the Brsi rudiments of lighl and in- 






27 



telligence in the hundreds of freedmen's schools ; not the 
little one alone ; not the young alone ; but the aged and 
hoary are there too, drinking in the very light of heaven it- 
self. What more glorious act could man do ! How sur- 
round his brow with a brighter halo ! 

That great act must live long in history. The future alone 
will open to view its great and glorious results. The pre- 
sent cannot appreciate it. He did it; again, I say it was Ms 
act, his measure and Ids proclamation. Cabinet ministers, 
Senators, Representatives and Governors, hesitated, doubt- 
ed, and stood afar off, fearing ; but he, armed with the pan- 
oply of confidence in the right, willing to take the responsi- 
bility, proclaimed freedom to enslaved millions. 

'Tis of such we mourn to-day. Let his name be cherished 
in our heart of hearts. Let his character and fame be de- 
fended whenever and wherever assailed ; and let us, upon 
whom is cast the duty of finishing up the great work begun, 
enter anew upon it with the same devotion that character- 
ized him. 

He was allowed to look over upon the land redeemed from 
the blight of slavery, it may be permitted to us to enter and 
enjoy. In so doing never, never let us forget to give thanks 
to the Ruler of all nations, for his signal manifestations in 
our behalf in the hour of peril ; and may He so dispose the 
minds of those who have rebelled against the best govern- 
ment among men, that they may penitently and cheerfully 
return to their allegiance, and this nation become again one 
in form, and one in spirit. 



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